


Do You Wait For Me There

by miel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ambiguously-Renaissance AU, Arranged Marriage, Gen, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miel/pseuds/miel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which Karkat Vantas, Fated Descendant Of The Sufferer, Enters A Moiraillegiance With The Youngest Of The Subjugglators In Order To Quell A Lowblood Uprising, While Gaining Secret Knowledge Of The Most Holy Church Of The Furthest Ring And Also Freaking The Fuck Out About Having To Dance With Gamzee In Front Of Her Imperious Condescension; Containing Several Bouts Of Crying, Fancy Clothing, Gratuitous Pale Pornography, Religious Blasphemy, And Tavros’s Cooking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do You Wait For Me There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuzujuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuzujuk/gifts).



> Arranged moirallegiance set in an "ambiguously-Renaissance-era AU". Title is from the song "Sawdust and Diamonds" by Joanna Newsom.

As far as days to leave went, there could not have been a worse one.

Karkat slumped against the trunk he was sitting on, the only space in the carriage left with enough room. The heat was unbearable. Midsummer’s Day hadn’t yet passed and it was already warm enough to make him dizzy at high-noon. Past the Skaian border in the south, the trolls all slept through the day and woke at sunset. The Grand Highblood, Gamzee Makara, and the entire Indigo court was expecting him at nightfall.

Living with humans had taken its toll on his habits: he woke with the sun as they did. The palace in the Alternian continent, his new home, would take some getting used to. Different customs than those of Skaia, different places and different people.

The little carved frog that Jade had given him as a goodbye present was still in his pocket. A greenish stone from the spring where she would wade barefoot with him in summer, which she had used her elementary magic to form into into an incredibly awful frog, with an angry face. He had told her it was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen, and she had rolled her eyes.

He fished the frog charm out of his pocket and turned it over in his hands. Upon closer inspection, the frog had two spirals etched into its belly. His sign. The stone weighed his pocket down, like an anchor tying him to the soft grasses and humble land of his home, the lands the carriage passed with each step the horses took.

He was going to miss them.

“They’re going to like you, and you’re going to be a perfect moirail” Jade had said, with a final hug. John had joined in, and added “You’re already a perfect friend. We’re gonna miss you so much.” And even Dave got pulled in eventually. “Tell Rose it’s boring here without her, but it’ll be nice not hearing you snore. Your handsome moirailprince isn’t gonna know where to start with you.” Karkat was glad for the levity; behind all of their smiles and his scowl, there was a hidden chord of sadness. He was leaving. If all went well, he might never see them again.

Where was he going, really? The letter had come, royal seal and all jumbled letters. The Indigo royal family had asked for his hand, for their youngest, one Gamzee Makara. A moiralleignace to bring peace both to Gamzee and the Empire, and they had it on high authority that they were to be a perfect match. Karkat didn’t have a problem with that. For all Jade and had reacted the day he’d gotten that fateful letter, he wasn’t terribly sad to be marrying Gamzee. Jade herself was, he supposed, never the sort to get married in the first place. She was far too spirited, wild, really, to ever entertain the idea of settling down with someone. If anything she might fly up into the clouds to live her life.

As for himself, it would be a welcome chance to see the world. Odd-bloods rarely lived past their first pupation, let alone long enough to find a moirail. The rest of the world, he had been told when he was very young, was not kind to those outside the hemospectrum. He still wore his sign in maroon, a far cry from his true color: red and brighter than all the flowers in the garden.

It wasn’t as if he had ever learned much about how other trolls lived. Though when he was hatched he had been sent to live with a kind group of humans, the Nobles, and their family in the sunny country, he had picked up some troll culture. Taught his letters and quadrants by hearing stories, his caste by seclusion. Even humans reacted strangely to his blood, and he had spent most of his life within the boundaries of the Nobles’ estate; leaving the safety of his home was something he had not considered until the Subjugglators had sent for him.

He hadn’t been alone, there were kids all around him - John and Jade and Rose and Dave - and the Nobles themselves who weren’t much older, really. They had treated him like a younger sibling, the kind that fairies dropped in the garden between pumpkins, and his life thereafter did seem like a storybook. Playing with Jade and her wolf-dog in the forest. Rose teaching him how to read Skaian script. Headbutting Dave and John and falling half-ashen for them both, once, far before he knew what quadrants meant. Curling around them like a duvet in the cold winter, around the fire.

He was going to miss them so much.

Karkat stretched his legs. Moping would get him nowhere, he knew that. 

It was so miserably hot. The decorative robe he wore was itchy for all it was lovely, and he wished for the simple frocks that were stowed in the trunk. The carriage jostled over a bump in the road, knocking the frog charm out of his hand. It fell on the floor and under one of the rugs that had been stuffed in at the last moment; Jade and Dave proved excellent at packing things into the carriage but there was barely room for himself to squeeze between a trunk and a stack of boxes. He cursed under his breath and ducked under one of the rolled-up tapestries to find it again.

The carriage was empty except for him - it was customary that moirails arrive alone. The driver had been quiet when they were packing earlier, which was strange as Karkat had heard that most blue-bloods were taken to talking as much as they could. Of course, he had heard that from Dave, and Dave was not the best source of information.

As if the driver had heard his thoughts - and what if he could hear them, Karkat had never really remembered which castes had psychic powers and which didn’t - at that very moment his deep voice carried through the air.

“We’re stopping for a bit, to let the horses have a drink at the stream. It might do you well to get out as well.”

A southern continent accent if he ever heard one. Long drawn-out “Oooh” just like Dave’s imitations. The carriage slowed to a stop. He heard the driver lead the horses to the stream and their hooves - he could imagine the exact way the man would say “hooves”, the same way he’d say “blue”, like he was about to whistle - on the path.

Karkat peeked out of the carriage and was met with overwhelming sunlight. He flinched away from it, covering his eyes. Rose had read fairytales with him when they were young, of the goddess Vrscika and how she led the good trolls to misfortune. It was said that she made the sun and made it beautiful, only to trick those who looked upon it. A cruel goddess, she had said. Rose, who loved the sun.

Would Rose still think the same, living as trolls did? She had left for the old Alternian capital a year before for studies, and in her last letter home she mentioned becoming initiated into an ancient religious order that no one could pronounce. Did she still love the sun?

“I was told you were accustomed to the light” the driver said, interrupting Karkat’s musings. The horses were already comfortably back in place in front of the carriage. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Well yes, but not like this. I spent my time inside the castle, not burning my eyes out like a stepped-on wiggler face up in the desert.”

The driver, he noticed, was wearing dark glasses to shield him from the harsh light, and the sign on his shirt was blue.

“Of course,” the driver said, “beg your pardon, sir...forgive me, but your name has only recently been told to me?”

“Karkat Vantas.”

“Well then, Karkat Vantas of the Human Plane of Skaia, it is my hope that you do not take offense to my ways; though my blood nearly matches that of the house I serve, I am but a humble horseman. Equius Zahaac.”

In the distant fields, all golden and chirping as the wheat swayed, there were lowblood farmers threshing and moving slowly. They were all warm colors, and the colors extended all over their arms and faces. Vrscika had taken no mercy on them, and they moved slowly, sunburned.

“Well, shall we, um, get going?”

The voice was unexpected, coming from the front of the carriage and not Equius. Karkat turned to see another troll in the front.

“Were you there the whole time?” Karkat asked, and the other troll nodded. He was sitting primly in the front seat, wearing a wide-brimmed hat balanced on his horns, and he was entirely covered in light brown freckles. “I didn’t even see you. Do you work at the castle?”

“Yep, I’m here to take care of the horses, and, um, of course, drive a bit if Equius gets tired.” He said.

“Tavros Nitram is one of the finest at animal communication in his caste.” Equius explained. “The rustbloods are all tied to the earth, to the ground; beasts as well, one could suppose.”

Tavros made a noise that sounded suspiciously like scoffing covered by coughing.

“We’re the ones who provide you with everything you have! We work the fields, build your castles,” he glanced at Karkat, “marry your finicky royalty.”

Equius’s face was bluish, glowing in the sun. “This is absolutely the wrong time to discuss politics. I was simply paying you a compliment!”

“Well, let’s be off then,” Tavros said, and he hopped up to the top of the carriage. His legs seemed to be covered in metal.

“Are you wearing armor?” Karkat asked.

Tavros smiled “Nope, those are, um, my legs.” At Karkat’s expression, he added, “Spiderbite. And one of the good things about working at a castle is that I didn’t, well, die. And I got some neat replacements.”

“We must go.” Equius stressed, elongating the o sound again. “Perhaps it would be best for you to rest for a while.”

“Yeah, all right. Try not to drive us over too many rocks, I guess I’ll need my beauty sleep if we’re going to arrive at the crack of midnight.”

“I believe we are expected at dawn.” Equius said, but Karkat was already back inside.

 

He had no intention of falling asleep, but the thick warmth of the afternoon seeped in and before long he was curled against the trunk and a rolled-up blanket. Modesty had lessened as the afternoon heat rose, and he lay in his chemise and closed his eyes.

It was to be a simple ordeal, a quiet ceremony; no day-long banquets, no chaste pale kisses. A political marriage was not the place for hand-holding, it was to unite kingdoms and quell anger, or so he had been told. A spoken agreement, an anointing, and a drop of blood under each name. The Subjugglators would jump at the very sight of the jewel-bright color. After that commotion, they would proclaim it throughout the land. And then, he might, for all he knew of the life of his fiance, never see Gamzee again after that. With moiraillegiances of this nature - the political ones where Highbloods marry their young princes off to odd-bloods to fulfill myth or postpone impending war - there might not even be any consoling at all.

He had never seen Gamzee, though that had not stopped his imagination. Would he be like those Highblood messengers, lace and velvet tucked under gold chains? Or like the stories he’d heard as a child, where Highbloods were as wild as sea-snakes with twice as many teeth? From what Dave, after coming back from the capital on journeys with his brother, had said, Alternian trolls were fiercer than the few that lived in Skaia. “Huge mean fuckers with ear-fins. Are you that worried about your handsome paleprince? You aren’t more worried that when they see you this guy’s not gonna drop to his knees crying at the very sight of your nubby babyhorns?” 

At that point he had tugged Dave’s cape, and it had taken Jade’s and John’s strength combined to break up their tussle.

Honestly, he had never thought about what a handsome moirail would be. It hadn’t crossed his mind; for all of the stories about fairy mother grubs granting wishes that he could recite by heart he had never really had a real pale fantasy, someone sweeping him off his feet when he was too low to get up on his own.

What would it be like, to wake beside Gamzee Makara, brushing the sopor slime out of his hair? To tame the thoughts that came to his head? Did moirails kiss, or had Rose and John’s gossiping been only to unnerve him as they often did? And did the highbloods still paint their faces with the blood of the culled? Was that still a thing?

Karkat’s mind drifted, though he never quite dreamed, and when he opened his eyes again, it was nearly sunset. The sound of the horses’ hooves seemed slower. His hair was flopped all over his face, in his mouth. The long hair was really beginning to get in the way.

It was the traditional thing to do, and he was glad now that the Nobles had thought to keep it or he never would have found a moirail. Alternian trolls didn’t cut their hair until their moirails did, and it was meant to be a very intimate pale bonding experience. Another thing he’d never thought much of. He supposed that this would be the end of the hair, though; even if it was a political marriage they would still have it cut properly before he was paraded around. Would Dave and Jade and John still recognize him? All of the summers running through the forests with them, he had thought it too heavy, thought it too cumbersome. Though now John would have no way of tying him to door handles, Jade could never again braid ribbons in, and oh no he was starting to miss them again. He felt for the frog charm in his pocket, but it wasn’t there. Had he dropped it? Panicking, he searched the floor of the carriage, until he reached his robe, where he had flung it off to escape the heat. There the charm was, in the pocket, scowling at him.

The carriage’s movement slowed to a halt. There was a flutter of cloth, and the carriage door opened. The cheery driver was back. “Oh good, you’re awake! We’re almost at the city so it might be a good idea to become, um, decent. Because it would be pretty bad to have everyone see you in your underwear, huh!” he laughed and returned to the front, while Karkat scrambled to pull the robe over himself. 

Thoroughly disheveled from the ordeal, he watched the window as they began the last leg of the journey. The city did look different than those of Skaia. Taller roofs, sea-warped. Hives with no doors and only windows, with turrets and towers. Some half-submerged in the canals. The tallest building of all, of course, was the castle, and its facade was adorned with the sign of the royal family. A church; the Highbloods were the heads of the church of the Subjugglators. Rose had seen its appeal somewhere between the stony gray walls and skull-studded facade. It would be a comfort to see her again, even if she too was different now.

At the gate, there was stalling. Courtesans whispering, all adorned with paint and emeralds. The gatekeeper glared at them when they passed, and he called for another highblood. A blue-blood, like Equius, mounted on a fearsome lusus. He directed them past the path leading to the front of the castle and led them to the stable, where Tavros opened the carriage door, looking utterly bewildered.

“Something’s weird,” Tavros explained under his breath, and Equius nodded.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Equius asked, “The psychic powers of the Royal caste have been permeating the entire city. I felt absolutely terrified in the presence of that Indigo gatekeeper.”

“You always feel terrified by the presence of that indigo gatekeeper” Tavros said, leaning to whisper in his friend's ear, though Karkat still overheard. “You should tell him! You know, uh, make a move or something.”

“Now is neither the time nor the place!” Equius hissed. He brushed his jacket down, cleared his throat, and faced Karkat. “There seems to be some trouble, not to worry; you’ll be arriving through the southern door.”

“Trouble?” Karkat asked.

“We’re not sure,” Tavros said, “but we’re playing on the safe side, which really is the best side when you think about it. You never know with the royal family, maybe the High Subjugglator can’t find his socks.”

“Don’t joke about that!” Equius said, and Tavros sighed.

A robed figure approached them as they began to ascend the stairs leading to the back entrance of the castle. Brightly-colored robes of the Order, and for a moment Karkat really thought it was Rose, though Rose had no horns, and this girl did. She scowled like Rose, under the shadow of her curled horns, and her glare alone was more intimidating than all the highbloods he’d seen that day.

“Dropped something.” She held out the frog charm. Karkat hadn’t remembered it ever leaving his pocket, but he took it, placed it this time in his other pocket. Perhaps there was a hole?

“They’re throwing a fit upstairs, he’s in one of his moods again. We’d have sent Rose out but she’s up to her neck in sopor slime.” She turned to Karkat. “It’s a good thing you’re here, at least. You’re Karkat, from Skaia, correct?” and he nodded. “Aradia Megido. Come with me, we’re going to have to raise as little commotion about you as possible. We’re going through the servants’ entrance.”

As they hurried through the tiny door, Karkat found himself almost laughing despite the tingling fear in the air. 

He had been right: today had indeed been an inauspicious day to arrive.


End file.
